Circus of Silence

Forever Yours

~*~

Each rotation brings a new high

and you breathe in the sweet, summer air with a contented sigh

the world is perfect and you are calm

until you close an eye

and open your mind

~*~

                 Whisper hadn't seen this sort of self-absorption- this narcissism- since Shula. She hadn't missed it. Not one single, solitary bit. It wasn't long before even the sight of Algernon Maybrush made her want to spit.

As soon as the siren's song stopped, the Witch's father fled. He replaced his daughter's smug expression with one of deep dread. Regret. Remembrance. It was a strange thing to witness while the Forever Song played.

Algernon Maybrush strained to catch his reflection as the Carousel spun round and round, the mirrors to which he so desperately cleaved reflecting light and nothing more. The man considered the cruel contraption critically. His green eyes narrowed, brows burrowing into his forehead. He waited a moment, and then he stepped back, cracking his knuckles with a grin on his still-young face.

Whisper and Rosalind exchanged a look.

"Hello?" asked the Witch.

The man put out a hand to silence her.

Rosalind huffed, hands on her hips.

 He flourished and began flicking fingers frenetically at the fair's finest attraction. Nothing, of course, became of the man's display. Not a single painted pony was convinced to neigh. If he thinks he can stop the Carousel and run free, thought she, Rosalind had better get them all a cup of strong tea. They'd be here all day.

"Pardon me, sir," she tried again, but the man kept circling, snapping his fingers to a tune that was not the Forever Song. Whisper watched as Rosalind's face turned red, and this rejection went to her head. In her skirt and fine boots, the young witch stomped across the grass- not looking much like a polite little lass, and she sang a shrill note that threw her father on his-

Slowly, the man turned around. He frowned, raising an eyebrow at his daughter in expectation.

"You're welcome," she snapped.

Algernon Maybrush looked like he'd been slapped. "Oh Lord," he groaned, looking every which way and every way around the Witch. "Please tell me your mother isn't here."

Even the Forever Song seemed to waver at that.

"What."

"Your mother, Rosie. Tell. Me. She's. Not-"

"Fourteen years." The re-faced man frowned. "You haven't seen me in fourteen years, and you want to know-"

The man snickered a bit. For a man who looked to be in his early middle age, Algernon Maybrush struck Whisper as being immature. He had less class than the youth who came by the circus. Whisper could see some of them now, if she squinted to look beyond Rosalind's magical barrier. With each generation, they grew hairier. "I married the woman to keep the magic away," he confessed with a grin, "to keep the witchcraft out of you. I married her to keep our family safe from the Grandmother. And now that you're here, Rosie-"

"Don't call me that."

Algernon Maybrush rolled his eyes. "Now that you're here, I deduce that it didn't work, and I wasted my youth for nothing. The Witch lured you in here like she did me.... and made you replace her, is that what I see?"